Houzz Tour: Designer's Eclectic Co-op in Manhattan

Variety in colors, textures and styles, along with flea market finds and built-ins, suits a one-bedroom apartment beautifully

I'm a freelance editor and writer who lives right along NYC's East River—on the Brooklyn side. I've been in publishing since moving to the city in the late 90s, worked for many women's and shelter magazines and websites, and I'm now a freelance writer and editor. My side business selling mid-century antiques and collectibles and vintage clothing keeps me trolling flea markets, shops, and stoops for great treasures, here in the city and all over the east coast.

I'm a freelance editor and writer who lives right along NYC's East River—on... More

Interior designer Joshua Greene was a fashion reporter for Women’s Wear Daily (and even had his own line of men’s shirts!) before attending an inspirational summer-long architectural program at Harvard — but the design world has always intrigued him. A boyhood fascination with Legos had him creating site plans and models (“landscaped houses, down to their illuminated driveways,” he says). And Greene has fond memories of accompanying his mother, who “ran a little design business back in the ’80s,” to job sites, workrooms, upholsterers and furniture refinishers in and around San Marino, California, the architecturally rich city where he grew up.

After realizing his true calling, he put down his reporter's pen and embarked on a career designing interiors and writing a design blog, Shagreene. Following a job with MR Architecture + Decor for David Mann, a long stint as a decorative project manager at Ralph Lauren and a couple of positions in between, he’s since landed at Sawyer/Berson, an architectural firm in New York City.

His personal and decorating style, what he calls a "balanced restraint — an orderly and straightforward variety of textures, colors and styles with nothing tricky thrown in," is perhaps nowhere more evident than in the composition of his former one-bedroom apartment in Manhattan's Chelsea neighborhood.

At 750 square feet and situated on the top floor of a 1938 art deco edifice, Greene’s bachelor co-op was pretty sizable by city standards — it even had an extra foot of ceiling height, a sunken living room and a “little entry hallway that contributed to a sense of discovery,” he says. He liked it from the start, save for some cosmetic concerns. “It looked like the set of Three’s Company," Greene says. "It hadn’t been touched since the ’70s. Wall-to-wall green shag carpeting covered the floors.”

While Greene loved his apartment’s deco bones and prewar details, he needed to channel the new millennium. He replaced all the base and crown molding before moving in (“an inexpensive way to make everything much nicer,” he says) and yanked out the awful carpet. Fortunately, the co-op’s original white-pine floors were still intact. Greene covered them with a dark stain, adding a sense of grandeur, and covered the living room walls with Anya Larkin silvery-gray grass cloth (“often too warm or cold, but this was perfect,” he says). From there, Greene simply built on his growing collection of artwork, some existing furniture and Donghia’s bright Spice Market fabric for floor-to-ceiling draperies.Greene designed the antique-brass coffee table (flanked by a pair of '70s barrel-backed slipper chairs covered in a woven chevron pattern from Dessin Fournir's Classic Cloth collection). He enlisted a letter cutter normally hired to create Ralph Lauren shops’ signage to construct it. “He nailed the finish, and it’s a really sturdy piece,” Greene says.

And what of the magnificent blue-green abstract oil painting above the sofa? It's one of his most treasured pieces, though he doesn't know who the artist is. “I treat it like a Picasso! Right now it's being cleaned and reframed.”

Opposite the sofa is a large, black regency-era breakfront with gold-green hand-painted detailing. In it, Greene stored china, books — even his television.

Greene snapped up the side chair with nailhead trim on a vintage shopping excursion in Palm Springs, California. (“My parents now live there, so I’m always visiting,” he says.) Greene had it reupholstered in Moore & Giles leather. A turquoise overdyed wool rug, handwoven in India and bought at ABC Carpet & Home, grounds the space.

The art deco chandelier was stealthily acquired at the Paris flea market, as Greene was in town only briefly. “Since my bags never arrived, I just carried it onto the plane. It came out of an old flat in Saint-Germain-des-Prés,” he says.

At 36 inches including its leaf, “the deco table was tough to find," he recalls, "but it totally fit in the space.” The chairs (from the same era) were separate finds. A Roman shade constructed of Rogers & Goffigon Gasoline sheer-linen fabric sets a masculine tone.

The kitchen received a new refrigerator and range, but Greene didn’t have the budget to undertake a major overhaul; changes here remained largely cosmetic.

Because the kitchen was on the small side, he removed upper cabinet doors and chose an open-storage plan for his everyday dishware. “I sanded and repainted everything, including the tile backsplash,” he says. Green used Ralph Lauren Home’s turquoise Emperor on the walls and cabinetry, and swapped out existing hardware for Restoration Hardware pulls in dark brass.

Thankfully, Greene didn’t have to tackle plumbing issues. He preserved the bathroom’s existing tub and laid 1-inch by 1-inch Davlin gold leaf tiles by Ann Sacks side by side across the entire floor, creating a shimmering luxuriousness in the most unlikely of places. “Everyone always went crazy for those gorgeous tiles,” he says.

Although sleeping quarters were ample, the apartment’s previous layout hadn’t accommodated much storage space, and a home office was nonexistent. So Greene designed an ingenious built-in system spanning the length of the bedroom’s far wall, around the room’s only windows, with multiple functions in mind.

Not only did it contain a desk, keeping Greene’s files out of view and housing his computer printer, but the unit was a near seamless integration, he says, “even though it surrounded the window and the room's depth decreased by 18 inches.” A Thomas O’Brien small Hicks pendant anchors the scene.

Facing the bed sits a midcentury Danish hutch filled with Greene’s personal accoutrements. “It was the first big piece of furniture I ever bought,” he says.

Greene has now sold this Chelsea apartment in a move he calls bittersweet. His transition to a smaller one-bedroom in nearby Greenwich Village has roused him to embark on another decorating journey."This time I'll be renovating the bath and kitchen and making the space much more modern and streamlined," he says. He insists his new digs will still bear his design sensibilities, but his signature integration of texture and pattern will be subtler. His influences this go-round? “I’ve been really inspired by Richard Meier’s boldness and projects by the Shelton Mindel firm.”

So, what else is next for Greene? Perhaps he’ll get the chance to work with a musician, something he’s always wanted to do. “I’m also inspired by music," he says. "A singer probably has an interesting process.”

Wow, my one bedroom apartment has the exact same layout and I can use the ideas here to decorate my home. Thanks a lot for sharing this. More pictures of the same apartment are really welcome at sachinoak@gmail.com

Wow is right ..This is one of those "real life common apartments " with 8ft ceilings ..that most of us have to deal with.. Joshua Greene nailed it with color..no white sofas that we all are tired of seeing..that so many of us would never want to "live with" He embraced color ..textures ..luxurious area rug ..thats big enough ..not dinky ones that look they are throw mats floating around.. so looking forward to seeing more of his work ..Creating decorating magic in small ordianry places ..that most of us have to work with..